


What Mother Expects

by Aonashe



Series: A Confederation of Dunces Anthology [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: 10 Minute Writing Prompt, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Obsessive-Compulsive, Overprotective, Short One Shot, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:14:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26015602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aonashe/pseuds/Aonashe
Summary: Inspired by this this writing prompt:Write a story about waiting - but don't reveal what's being waited for until the very end.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Series: A Confederation of Dunces Anthology [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888168





	What Mother Expects

On this particular day, she is waiting for her suitor. Her suitor is already three minutes late in calling and she is certain that he knows she cannot bear tardiness. She is expecting him to ask her to go out with him tonight, so she washed her hair and is trying to dry it into unassuming ringlets rather than the frizz it usually is. She has also taken care in dressing for the occasion. There is not much she can do to occupy her time during the waiting that won't endanger her drying hair, so she perches primly on the chaise near the telephone.  
  
In a typical situation, she ensures that there will be little waiting time that passes idly. There were always projects on the go: renovations in winter, gardening in summer, and throughout the year there were endless documents that piled themselves on her desk, to edit for work. In the single-car garage, there are items in various stages of disrepair. She never discards things that could be salvaged, but organizes them according to how long they will take to fix. The quick fixes are near her tidy workbench, and the most time consuming or questioning repairs are nearest to the garage door, which is in permanent disrepair. She suspects that the jaggly jack pine in the front yard is the culprit of its decay.  
  
She gently picks up her Book of Lists and absent-mindedly runs her fingers over the print. Caressing its tidy pages, which are arranged into neat columns of perfectly stacked words, is almost soothing. The fact that the handwritten black letters could be mistaken for type is a point of pride for her. For the first stint of waiting, she flips through the lists. Each list is split into three equally spaced columns. The first column is entitled _Home and Finances_ , the second _Personal_ , and the third _What Mother Expects._

When the clock indicates that her suitor is seven minutes late to call, her nervous fretting starts. Her fingers start drumming on the table, which she polished out of panic. Billy Pasternak had asked her to accompany him on an all-expenses-paid trip to Puerto Vallarta. Although she had desperately wanted to fly off with him, her mother strictly forbade leaving the city with a man without serious intentions. And so, broken-hearted, she ended things with poor Billy, who had planned to confess his love with a diamond ring. It had taken him months to save money for the ring.

Billy had never once been late, but always fifteen minutes early.

But by the time she had realized her mistake, she was too drowned in pride to admit she had made one in the first place. Her mother also insisted that where romantic relationships were concerned, if you repeat chapters the ending will still remain the same.

Her suitor is almost half-an-hour late now. This will not do.

She needs to calm her nerves, so she turns quickly to the lists, prepared to copy it onto the next page, but she finds that there are no blank pages left. She fetches a fresh journal from the closet and settles herself again. She quickly uncaps a red-tipped Sharpie and circled items she had forgotten to carry over from the other page. Berating herself as she continues, each time she copies a word to the next list, she does so diligently and as lovingly as when she had first written the original. Its passages are memorized.

24\. Fall in love when you are ready, not when you are bored.

25\. Good things come to those who wait, be patient.

Once she has completed the list, she goes to the garage, returning with a stepladder. She places it below the square cover to the attic's crawl space. She plunges the top half of her body through the cobwebs and places the full journal into the nearest set of boxes filled with other journals. The original journal, a gift from her mother--the third of her current journal--is housed in a fireproof drawer in her bedroom. It is her most treasured possession, her mother's guiding voice for each and every single one of her decisions.

The phone rings.

She scurries down the ladder and yanks the cord out of the wall. Smiling to herself, she purrs like a cat that had found itself lying in the greatest ray of sun.

The rain had stopped. She is pleased to see that puddles have formed themselves in strange places in the yard. The pond she so painstakingly constructed overflowed and some of the daffodils she planted would have to be rescued. She twists her hair into a ponytail and ventures out to fix the damage.

Her mother always said that the rain could wash anew.


End file.
